'House' premiere: Dr. House why do we love thee? Let us count the ways

Well, I suppose the more appropriate lyric would be, "I don't know why I love him."

House.

What is it about this misanthropic, antisocial, borderline misogynistic character that turns perfectly sensible, confident women into mush every Tuesday? Is it the piercing blue eyes? The athletic build? The earnestly unkempt appearance?

It can't be his personality which seems to range from smugly irritated to arrogantly oblivious.

As a doctor he has the bedside manner of...well unfortunately of many doctors these days, which isn't very good. As a human being...even his close friends are hard pressed to understand why they remain as such.

Consider this season's opening episode Tuesday night. It begins with him playing video games by the beside of a comatose woman whose immobile hand he's using as a cup holder for his thirsty-two ouncer. The game unit, we discover, he swiped from the pediatric ward of the hospital.

Not exactly the act of a noble healer.

But then those games have been said to cause seizures and that's the last thing those poor, sick kids need. Okay, that sentence is not from the show, but that's the sort of thing House gets away with saying every week from his colleagues, his patients, his patients' families, the custodial staff, women he hits on during exams, the average joe walking down the street. Pretty much anyone he comes into contact with.

hey

Also in Tuesday's opener episode, he tried to coerce a colleague to stay with the hospital by refusing to help diagnosis a seriously ill patient, leaving his team floundering on their own to try to cipher the illness and the cure. When he finally did decide to help the woman, he descended upon her like a raptor, jabbing a needle into her leg for a blood sample and explaining the purpose for it in terms that would require three medical
degrees to understand.

The diagnosis, by the way, was a form of leprosy (apparently, his first tip off was that the woman's youthful skin belied her 37 years). Which might be why people put up with him: Because he can pick up on clues that minute and figure ways to keep the patient's vitals from spiraling down further.

But still...

If this was a co-worker, I'd transfer to another department. If this was a boss, I'd start job hunting. If this was a suitor, I doubt we'd make it past the first date. Not that he gets much courting done, busy as he is wallowing in his own misery.

Yet every Tuesday I plan to park myself in front of the TV to gleefully watch this grizzled man mow down the egos of perfectly nice people who are unfortunate enough to wander into his path. What does that say about me?

Of course, the genius of the character is that he's a bit more complicated than his seeming indifference would suggest. There's usually a spark of truth in what he says, if you can wade through the thick sarcasm and nasty phraseology to find it. It's usually a truth that needs to be said for everyone's sake, though House isn't saying it for anyone's sake; he's saying it because, like a nervous tic, he just can't help himself.

There are naturally miserable people out there. The sort of people who can suck the joy out of a room with Dyson-like efficiency. The most powerful microscope on the planet couldn't locate a redeemable quality within them. You can actually feel your heart lifting when you see the back of them.

These are not people you want to be around. Ever.

Curiously, the character of House is not one of those people, no matter how tenaciously he aspires to be. Oh sure, after the first, 31st and 110th rude gibe he spews per episode he may seem to fit that description perfectly but that's what makes the character great. It is a testament to Hugh Laurie's talent as an actor, as well as the creative minds behind the show, that the character is more than the sum of his misdeeds.

This is not a cardboard character. They have put the "what if" factor into the his makeup, leaving the viewer to wonder, "What if there's a reason House is such a flaming jerk? Maybe his nastiness is nurture over nature; a product of him somewhere along the line being chewed up and spat out by life to such a degree that he's left with a weary fury at everyone and everything.

There are times when he does something or says something that makes it seem as if it is possible for him to rise above his superiority complex. Like at the end of the episode on Tuesday when Wilson confessed that he was never sure if they were ever really friends and left House standing with an unmistakable look of shock on his face. Did Wilson strike a chord that would put House onto the road of self discovery and self healing, thus making him a better individual? Was House unable to comprehend what Wilson had told him thereby making him a hopeless case? Or was House simply panicking at losing a person in his life who, in Wilson's word, "enabled" him to stay on the path of self-absorption and was trying to figure out who else he could recruit to fill the role? Many might think the third, but don't count out the first two possibilities.

Ultimately, that might be why, against their better judgment, the ladies love the House. Because, despite the glaring flaws, there's a chance, remote as it is, that a decent man exists within him and all he needs is a little TLC to bring that out. In which case, it's okay for us to be turned on by the piercing blue eyes and the athletic build and to even
occasionally pump the air when he gets off a particularly good zinger at another person's expense.

No TrackBacks

2 Comments

Laura: If I hadn't seen your name on this article, I would have sworn that I had written this myself! Actually, you said it much more eloquently than I could have. I absolutely adore the character of House, and I think Hugh Laurie is brilliant. I think I like his character because he is a tortured soul, much like that of Edward Rochester in "Jane Eyre." A very romantic character!

There are other such characters on TV--weird outcasts with few, if any, social skills--and in prime time, yet! I'm thinking particularly of the probably autistic title character of Bones and of Ed Goren, the maddeningly smart weirdo detective on "Law and Order: CI." Maybe it's a manifestation of the idea that the genes of brilliance (artistic and otherwise) and madness are supposed to be related...or maybe we just love a good savant...

Leave a comment

Name

Email Address

URL

Remember personal info?

Comments
(You may use HTML tags for style)

Jennifer Thomas

Jennifer Thomas is a features editor with Sun-Times Media. She lives in Chicago and loves the written word, dark TV dramas, horror movies and puppies.